London Evening Standard journalists have been told the paper is facing editorial cuts to help recover its portion of the £450,000 cost of a libel trial the paper lost last week.

In an email to staff, Evening Standard editor Sarah Sands said the cost of the trial, which will be shared with another defendant, the Daily Mail, was "considerable" and "spending will now have to be even tighter for the rest of the year".

A senior Evening Standard source said Sands's email did not mean that the paper would have to find savings equivalent to the full amount of the libel trial costs, but there will be general "belt-tightening".

The email, sent just after 6pm on Friday, has angered Evening Standard staff who feel the paper should have settled the libel claim out of court rather than going to trial.

A high court jury on Friday returned a unanimous verdict that university tutor Luke Cooper had been libelled by articles in the Evening Standard and Daily Mail that falsely described him as a ringleader in an attack on the Conservative party's Millbank headquarters during an anti-education cuts demonstration in London in November 2010.

The 12-strong jury in the five-day trial said Cooper should be paid £35,000 in damages by the Evening Standard and £25,000 by the Daily Mail. The judge, Mr Justice Eady, ordered the papers to pay £450,000 in costs within 28 days.

All newspapers budget for legal costs annually and it is highly unusual for an editor to tell reporters their operations will be curtailed after a legal bill comes in, however high.

Sands full email said: "I am afraid to say that the considerable costs for the trial relating to a past news story will have to be recouped so spending will now have to be even tighter for the rest of the year.

"It is extremely disappointing and especially so when everyone has worked so hard for the success of the paper but we just have to deal with it. [Managing editor] Doug [Wills] will look at all areas of editorial spending to see what we might save."

The threat of further cuts comes as the paper is already coming under financial pressure from proprietor Evgeny Lebedev.

In another email to staff earlier on Friday, the Independent editor, Chris Blackhurst – who is also the group editorial director – said the changes will mean some journalists working from home as the papers' publisher considers locating all its titles on a single floor in its current base in London's Kensington.

The newspapers – the Independent, i, the Independent on Sunday and the Evening Standard – rent office space from the Daily Mail & General Trust in its Derry Street headquarters.

But managers at the titles, which are run by Alexander Lebedev's son Evgeny, are anxious to cut the expense of leasing two office spaces on different floors.

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